Walks in London, vol. I

Hare, Augustus J. C.

1878

Chapter X: The Tower and its Surroundings.

Chapter X: The Tower and its Surroundings.

 

From the statue of William IV. at the foot of , Little East Cheap and lead to the . This is of the busiest parts of the City, movement is impeded, and all the side streets teem with bustle and traffic. At the end of is the Church of , which derives its surname from having been founded by the nuns of Barking Abbey before the reign of Richard I., who added a chantry in honour of the Virgin where the north chancel aisle now is. This chantry-

Berking Chapel

contained a famous image of the Virgin placed there by Edward I. in consequence of a vision before his father's death, in which she assured him that he should subdue Wales and Scotland, and that he would be always victorious, whilst he kept her chapel in repair. To the truth of this vision he swore before the Pope, and obtained an indulgence of days for all penitents worshipping here at her shrine. In the instrument which set this forth, prayer is especially asked for the soul of Richard I.,

whose heart is buried beneath the high altar

: the lion-heart, however, is really in the museum at Rouen, having been exhumed from

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the cathedral, where it was deposited when the king's body was buried at Fontevrault.

The church, which is chiefly Perpendicular, is entered on the south by a handsome modern Decorated door. The interior has all the charm which want of uniformity gives, and its old ironwork (observe the sword-rests of Lords- Mayor--the last of -over the Corporation Pew), its ancient monuments, and numerous associations give it a peculiar interest. Making the circuit of the church we may notice-

North Aisle. The beautiful canopied altar tomb of John Croke, Alderman and Skinner, 1477, and his wife Margery, 1490, who bequeathed her great chalys of silver guilt to the church, to have the souls of herself and her husband more tenderly prayed for. They are represented, in brass, accompanied by small groups of their sons and daughters, with prayers coming from their lips: these, and the coats of arms, are enamelled, not incised.

The figure of Jerome Bonalius, 1583, an Italian (probably the Venetian Consul), kneeling at a desk.

Brass of Thomas Virby, Vicar, 1453.

Brass of John Bacon, 1437, and his wife, very wel-executed figures with flowing draperies. He was a woolman and is represented on his bag. The inscription is in raised letters.

Pavement of North Aisle. The grave of George Snayth, 1651, sometimes auditor to William Lawd, late Archbishop of Canterbury. Snayth, a witness of the archbishop's will, who bequeathed to him £ 50, desired to rest near his master. (The windows in this aisle commemorate the escape of the church in the Great Fire.)

The Altar, beneath which the headless body of Archbishop Laud was buried by his steward George Snayth, January 11, 1644. It is curious that Laud, the champion of the Book of Common Prayer, was buried according to the ceremonies of the Church of England, long after it was disused in most of the London churches. His body was removed to St. John's College, Oxford, in 1663.

Nave. Brass of Roger James, 1563, bearing the arms of the Brewers' Company; and the noble Flemish brass of Andrewe Evyngar, citizen and salter, and his wife Ellyn, 1536, which has all the delicacy of a Memling picture and is well deserving of study. Evyngar was the son of a brewer at Antwerp, where his monument was probably executed. There is only one brass superior to it in England--in the Church of St. Mary Cray at Ipswich. On the upper part of this monument is a representation of the Virgin seated in a chair with the dead Christ upon her knees. On the right are the arms of the Salters' Company, on the left those of the Merchant Adventurers of Hamburg. The symbols of the four Evangelists appear at the angles of the inscription (from the litanies of the Sarum breviary), Ne reminiscaris domine delicta nostra vel parentum nost. neque vindictam sumas de peccatis nostris. Above and below the figures are the words (from the second and third nocturn of the office for the dead, and the responsory in the second nocturn of the same), Sana domine animam meam quia peccavi tibi. Ideo deprecor majestatem ut tu Deus deleas iniquitatem meam.

Monument of John Kettlewell the Nonjuror, 1695, who desired to lie in the same grave where Archbishop Laud was before interred. This voluminous author was the Vicar of Coleshill, deprived in 1690 for refusing to take the oaths to William and Mary. His funeral service was performed by Bishop Ken. He so happily and frankly explained all the details of our duty, that it is difficult to say whether he more formed the manners of men towards evangelical virtue, or exemplified it in his own life.

South Aisle. A canopied tomb of c. 1400, with a small enamel of the Resurrection.

Brass of John Rusche, 1498; and that of Christopher Rawson, Merchant of the Staple, 1518, and his two wives, for the repose of whose souls he founded a chantry in the chapel of St. Anne.

The important brass of William Thynne, chefe clerk of the kechyn to Henry VIII., who departed from the prison of his frayle body in 1546. This brass is a palimpsest, the other side being engraved with the figure of an ecclesiastic, and was evidently one of the monastic brasses torn up at the Dissolution. Thynne wears the chain which was the badge of court officers, for he was Clerk of the Kitchen, Clerk of the Green Cloth, and Master of the Household to Henry VIII. He was the Thynnus Aulicus --the courtier, of Erasmus,Epistulae xv. 14. and was the originator of the wealth and power of the Thynne family. His father was Thomas Boteville, of an ancient family which came from Poitou in the reign of John, and which acquired the name of Thynne from John of th« Inn, one of its members who resided in an Inn of Court. William Thynne edited the first edition of the Works of Chaucer in 1532, which he dedicated to Henry VIII., and which was complete, with the exception of the Plowman's tale, which was then suppressed by the king's desire, but which appeared in the edition of 1542, which was edited by his son Francis, who narrates-

This tale when Kinge Henry the Eigth had redde he called my father unto him and said: William Thynne, I doubt this will not bee allowed; for I suspect the bishoppes will call thee in question for ytt. To whome my father, being in great favore with his prince, sayed, If your grace be not offended I hope to be protected by you. Whereupon the king did bidd hym go his waye and feare not. All which notwithstanding my father was called in question by the bishopps and heaved at by Cardinall Wolseye his olde enemeye for many causes, but mostly for that my father had procured Skelton to publish his Collin Cloute against the Cardinall, the most part of which book was compiled in my father's house at Erith in Kent.

The only son of William Thynne was Francis, the Lancaster Herald, a distinguished antiquary, who assisted Holinshed in his chronicles, seeing, says Fuller, the shoulders of Atlas himself may be weary, if not sometimes beholden to Hercules to relieve him. Of his nephews, one was William, Steward of the Marches, who has a noble alabaster tomb in Westminster Abbey, and another Sir John Thynne of Longleat, who founded the House of Bath.

Brass of Elizabeth (1540) wife of W. Denham, Alderman and Sheriff, whose portrait is in the Ironmongers' Hall.

The carvings of the Font are by Gibbons.

The Parish Register records the baptism, October 23, 1644, of William, son of William Penn and Margarett his wife, of the Tower Liberty. The eldest son of Sir William Penn (Commander in Chief of the Navy under the Duke of York, Knighted in 1665) was born on the east side of Tower Hill, within a court adjoining to London Wall.Letter from P. Gibson to William Penn, the Quaker. Being turned out of doors by his father for his Quaker opinions, he obtained a grant (in consideration of his father's services) from Charles II. of land in the province of New Netherlands in America, where he became the founder of Pennsylvania. Returning to England, he died at Beaconsfield in 1718.

In the Churchyard of Allhallows was buried Humfery Monmouth, Alderman, the great benefactor of the early reformers, who harboured and helped Tyndale, was imprisoned for heresy by Sir Thomas More, and who

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bequeathed money for

four

godly ministers

(Mr. Latimer, Dr. Barnes, Dr. Crome, and Mr. Taylor)

to preach reformed doctrines

in the church where he was buried. From its nearness to the Tower, this church also became the burialplace of several of its victims. Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, the Cardinal of St. Vitalis who was never allowed to wear his hat, his grave being

digged by the watches with their halberds,

was laid here (without his head, which was exposed on )

without coffin or shroud,

near the north door, in , but was afterwards moved that he might be near his friend Sir Thomas More in the Tower. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (beheaded for quartering the arms of Edward the Confessor, though he had a license to do so from the Heralds' College),

the

first

of the English nobility that did illustrate his birth with the beauty of learning,

[n.367.1]  was also buried here in , but was moved to Framlingham in . Here still reposes Lord Thomas Grey (uncle of Lady Jane), beheaded in for taking part in the rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyatt, and his perhaps may be the headless skeleton lately found at the west end of the nave.[n.367.2]  The sign of the (No. ), opposite this church, marks a house where Peter the Great, when in England, used to booze and smoke with his boon companions.

We now emerge on , a large plot of open ground, surrounded with irregular houses. In of these lived Lady Raleigh while her husband was imprisoned in the Tower. Where the garden of is now planted,

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a scaffold or gallows of timber was always erected for the execution of those who were delivered by writ out of the Tower to the sheriffs of London, there to be executed. Only the queens and a very few other persons have suffered within the walls of the Tower-almost all the great historical executions have taken place here on the open hill. Amongst others, this honoured spot has been stained with the blood of Bishop Fisher, ; Sir Thomas More, ; Cromwell, Earl of Essex, ; Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, ; Thomas, Lord Seymour of Sudeley, ; the Protector Somerset, ; John Dudley, Earl of Northumberland, ; Lord Guildford Dudley, ; Sir Thomas Wyatt, ; Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, ; Archbishop Laud, ; Algernon Sydney, ; the Duke of Monmouth, ; the Earl of Derwentwater and Lord Kenmuir, ; Lords Kilmarnock and Balmerino, ; and Simon, Lord Lovat, , the last person beheaded in England, who died expressing his astonishment that such vast multitudes should assemble

to see an old grey head taken off.

Below , separated from it by a wide moat and ramparts now planted with gardens on the side of the town, is the immense pile of fortifications known as the . Though of the most ancient, and quite the most historical, of English fortresses, a great feeling of disappointment will be inevitably felt by those who see it for the time. Its picturesque points have to be carefully sought for. Its general aspect is poor, rrean, and uninteresting, a fault which is entirely owing to the

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feebleness of our later English architects--to the same utter ignorance of the honour due to light and shadow-and the same sacrifice of general outline to finish, which has ruined Windsor Castle. Here, where an Italian would have used enormous blocks of stone, perfect rocks heaped upon another, all work of rebuilding or restoration has been done with small stones neatly cut and fitted together like bricks, producing an impression of durable piteousness, which it requires all the romance of history to counteract.

A tradition which ascribes the building of the Tower to Julius Caesar has been greatly assisted by Gray through the lines in the Bard-

Ye towers of Julius, London's lasting shame,

With many a foul and midnight murder fed.

But no existing buildings are of earlier date than the or Keep which was built by William the Conqueror in . Gundulph, Bishop of Rochester, the builder of Rochester Castle, was overseer of the work. He was surnamed

the Weeper

and appropriately

laid in tears the foundation of the fortress which was to be the scene of so much suffering.

The Tower was much enlarged by William Rufus, of whom Henry of Huntingdon says,

He pilled and shaved the people with tribute, especially to spend about the

Tower of London

and the great hall of

Westminster

.

By Rufus and Henry I., St. Thomas's Tower was built over the Traitor's Gate,--

they caused a grate castle to be builded under the said Tower, to wit on the south side towards the Thames, and also encastelated the same about.

In the reign of Henry I. we read of Ralph Flambard, Bishop of Durham, being imprisoned in the

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Tower, but a rope was sent to him, concealed in a cask of wine, and he escaped safely, being let down from the walls.

King Stephen frequently resided in the Tower. The moat was made by Longchamp Bishop of Ely in when he was intrusted with its defence for Richard . against John. He

enclosed the castle with an outward wall of stone, thinking to have environed it with the river of Thames.

Of all English sovereigns the Tower was most enriched and adorned by Henry III., for he regarded it rather as a palace than a fortress. Griffin, Prince of Wales, was imprisoned here in and attempted to escape by a rope made of his bedclothes, but it broke, and he met with a frightful death in the moat. Under Edward I. the great prisoners taken in the Scottish wars were immured here. Baliol, after years, was released on the intercession of the Pope, but William Wallace and Sir Simon Fraser only left their prison to be executed with the most horrible brutality in Smithfield.

Edward II. frequently resided in the Tower, where his eldest daughter, thence called Jane of the Tower, was born. Under Edward III., John, King of France, and David Bruce, King of Scotland, were imprisoned here. In the reign of Richard II. the Tower was continually filled with prisoners who were victims of the jealousy of rival factions, the most illustrious being the young king's tutor, the excellent Sir Simon Burley, of whom Froissart says,

To write of his shameful death right sore displeaseth me; for when I was young I found him a noble knight, sage and wise

yet no excuse could be heard, and on a day he was brought out of the Tower and beheaded like a traitor-God have mercy on his soul.

For this act, when his own friends

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obtained the chief power, King Richard caused his uncle the Duke of Gloucester to be put to death at Calais, and the Earl of Arundel lost his head on .

During the rebellion of Wat Tyler, when the king, who had previously been fortified in the Tower, was induced to go forth to meet the insurgents, the rebels broke into the fortress and pillaged it, beheading Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury (who had abused them as

shoeless ribalds

), Sir Robert Hales the treasurer, and others whom they found there. It was in the upper chamber of the White Tower that Richard II. abdicated in favour of his cousin Henry of Bolingbroke, and hence Henry IV. went to his coronation, a custom which was followed by all after sovereigns of England till James II. Henry, Earl of Huntingdon, the king's brother-in-law, was the of a long series of victims beheaded in the Tower in the reign of Henry IV., in which Prince James of Scotland, son of Robert III., was imprisoned there. Under Henry V. the prisons were filled with the captives of Agincourt, including Charles, Duke of Orleans,[n.371.1]  and his brother John, Count of Angoulme. In this reign also the Tower became the prison of many of the reformers called Lollards, of whom the greatest was Lord Cobham, who was dragged by a chain from the Tower to be burnt in Fields.

In the reign of Henry VI. the fortress was occupied by the prisoners of the Wars of the Roses, and here in , King Henry VI. died mysteriously just after the Battle of Tewkesbury-according to Fabian and Hall, by the hand of the Duke of Gloucester, who

murthered the

said kyng with a dagger.

Queen Margaret was imprisoned here till . years afterwards George, Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV., was put to death in the Tower. With the death of Edward IV. the darkest page in the annals of the fortress is opened by the execution of Lord Hastings, soon to be followed by the alleged murder of the young King Edward V., and his brother Richard, Duke of York.

Hence Elizabeth of York went to her coronation as wife of Henry VII., and here she died after her confinement in . Her little daughter Katherine was the last princess born in the Tower. The most illustrious victim of this reign was Edward, Earl of Warwick, son of the murdered Duke of Clarence, and the last male Plantagenet, who was beheaded in , his only crime being his royal blood. In the same year Perkin Warbeck, the White Rose of England, who claimed to be the younger son of Edward IV., was imprisoned here before being taken to be hung at Tyburn.

The accession of Henry VIII. witnessed the imprisonment and execution of Empson and Dudley the taxgatherers of his father, and in that of Edward Bohun, Duke of Buckingham, whose chief fault was his descent from Thomas of Woodstock, youngest son of Edward III. The next great executions on were those of Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas More, who suffered for refusing to acknowledge the king's supremacy. These were soon followed by the private execution of Queen Anne Boleyn and her brother Lord Rochford, and by the death on of Henry Norris, William Brereton, Sir Francis Weston, and Mark Smeaton for her

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sake. The endless victims of the northern insurrections and of the dissolution of monasteries next succeeded to the prisons of the Tower, followed by those accused of treasonable correspondence with Cardinal Pole, including his venerable mother, Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, niece of the Kings Edward IV. and Richard III., who was brutally beheaded within the walls. In Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, the chief promoter of the dissolution of monasteries, who had offended Henry VIII. by bringing about his marriage with Anne of Cleves, was imprisoned and brought to the block. His execution was soon followed by that of Queen Catherine Howard and her confidante Lady Rochford.

In Anne Askew was racked in the Tower for the Protestant faith before her burning in Smithfield. And in the poet Earl of Surrey was executed on , the only ground for the accusation of high treason brought against him being that he quartered (as he had a right to do) the arms of Edward the Confessor, and that he was fond of conversing with foreigners. His father Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, only escaped being added to the victims of Henry VIII.'s jealousies by the tyrant's death.

In the reign of Edward VI., Thomas, Lord Seymour of Sudeley, his uncle, and the widower of his stepmother, Queen Katherine Parr, was beheaded on for government intrigues, and for having defrauded the mint to an amount of something like and having established cannon foundries where he had cannons ready for immediate service.

As touching the kind of his death, whether he be saved or no, I refer that to God. In the twinkling of an eye He may save a man, and turn his heart. What He did I cannot tell. And when a man hath two strokes with an axe, who can tell but between two strokes he doth repent? It is hard to judge. But this I will say, if they will ask me what I think of his death, that he died very dangerously, irksomely, and horribly. He was a wicked man, and the realm is well rid of him.-Latimer's Sermons, p. 162.

In the King's other uncle, the Duke of Somerset, Lord Protector, being most unjustly found guilty of felony, was beheaded amid the tears of the people. His execution was followed by those of his friends, Sir Thomas Arundel, Sir Michael Stanhope, Sir Ralph Vane, and Sir Miles Partridge.

The accession of Mary brought Lady Jane Grey and her husband Lord Guildford Dudley to the Tower and the scaffold, with her father-in-law John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, and his adherents Sir John Gates and Sir Thomas Palmer. The rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyatt, a principal cause in the execution of Lady Jane Grey, led to his being beheaded, to the execution of the Duke of Suffolk and Lord Thomas Grey, and to the imprisonment in the Tower of the Princess Elizabeth.

The accession of Elizabeth sent a number of Roman Catholic bishops and abbots to the Tower for refusing to acknowledge her supremacy. Lady Katherine Grey, sister of Lady Jane, was also kept in prison till her death in for the crime of a secret marriage with the Earl of Hertford. Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, son of the unfortunate Earl of Surrey, was imprisoned and executed in , for having aspired to the hand of Mary, Queen of Scots. In the latter part of the queen's reign numbers of Jesuit priests were committed to the Tower and executed, and Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, being imprisoned there,

375

died by suicide. Sir John Perrot, a natural son of Henry VIII., unjustly imprisoned, died of a broken heart. Through the bitter jealousy of the reigning court favourites, Cecil and Raleigh, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, was imprisoned and beheaded privately in the Tower in , his execution being followed by those of Sir Christopher Blunt, Sir Charles Danvers, Sir Gilley Merrick, and Henry Cuffe.

Shortly after James I. came to the throne an alleged plot for the re-establishment of popery and raising of Lady Arabella Stuart to the throne led to that lady's imprisonment for life in the Tower (where she died insane) with Lord Thomas Grey and Lord Cobham, and to the execution of George Brook the brother of the latter. Sir Walter Raleigh, imprisoned at the same time (), was released in , but he was reimprisoned in to gratify the malice of Gondomar the Spanish ambassador, and (though he had been appointed admiral of the fleet with command of an expedition to Guiana, during his short interval of liberty) he was beheaded months afterwards on his old accusation.

In the dungeons of the Tower were filled with the conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot, who were all hung, cut down, and disembowelled while they were still living. In Sir Thomas Overbury was poisoned in the Tower by the Earl of Rochester and the Countess of Essex, who obtained a pardon by the favour of King James, though he had prayed that

God's curse might light upon him and his posterity (which it did) if he spared any that were guilty.

In Sir John Eliot was committed to the Tower, where he wrote his and continued,

376

though his lodging was times changed, till his death in .

In Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Stafford, unjustly condemned for high treason against the will of his sovereign Charles I., was beheaded on , having been blessed from a window on his way to execution by Archbishop Laud, who was then himself a prisoner, having been impeached for Romish tendencies, and who was himself beheaded on . In the wars which followed, Sir John Hotham and his son, the Duke of Hamilton, the Earl of Holland and Lord Capel were imprisoned and suffered death for the cause of their king.

With the return of Charles II. came the imprisonment and death of many of the regicides, but the next important executions were those of Algernon Sidney and William Lord Russell; and that of the Duke of Monmouth, who was executed for high treason against his uncle James II. in . In the Archbishop of Canterbury and bishops were imprisoned in the Tower for a libel upon the king and his government. Executions were now rare, but numerous prisoners still filled the Tower. Among these in was Bishop Atterbury, whose imprisonment for Jacobitism is commemorated by Pope-

How pleasing Atterbury's softer hour,

How shone his soul unconquered in the Tower.

In Lord Derwentwater and Lord Kenmuir were beheaded on for their devotion to the Stuarts. The Earl of Nithsdale escaped in a cloak and hood provided by his heroic wife. Loyalty to the Stuarts likewise led in to the execution of Lords Kilmarnock,

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Balmerino, and Lovat, with Charles Ratcliffe, younger brother of Lord Derwentwater.

The parts of the Tower generally exhibited to the public are the Armoury and the Jewel Tower. These, however, are the parts least worth seeing. To visit the rest of the Tower an order should be obtained from the Constable. Visitors are shown over the Tower by , as the Wardens of the Tower are called, who still wear the picturesque dress of the Yeomen of the Guard of Henry VIII. established in , a privilege which was obtained for them in perpetuity from Edward VI. by his uncle the Protector Somerset, who had noted their diligence in their office while he was a prisoner in the Tower. It has been well observed that the dress of the Beefeaters in the Tower shows, more than anything else in London, the reverence of England for her past. Their name is supposed to be derived from the fact that the commons of the early Yeomen of the Guard, when on duty, was beef-an the name was probably derisory, beef being then a cheap article of consumption, for when under Henry VIII. butchers were compelled by law to sell their mutton at farthings, beef was only a half-penny.

Before reaching the moat we pass by what is called

the Spur

beneath the , where an ancient arch with a portcullis is now built into modernised bastions. This was the gate where Elizabeth, coming from Canonbury before her coronation, on entering the fortress which had been her prison, alighted from her palfrey, and falling upon her knees

offered up to Almighty God, who had delivered her from a danger so imminent, a solemn and devout thanksgiving for an

escape so miraculous,

as she

expressed it herself,

as that of Daniel out of the mouths of the Lions.

[n.378.1] 

Adjoining the Middle Gate was the , with a semicircular area, where the kings of England formerly kept their wild beasts. The of these were leopards presented to Henry III. by the Emperor Frederick, in allusion to the royal arms. A bear was soon added, for which the

sheriffs of London were ordered to provide a muzzle and iron chain to secure him when out of the water, and a strong cord to hold him

when fishing in the Thames.

An elephant was procured in the same reign, and a lion in that of Edward II. The wild beasts at the Tower were the most popular sight of London in the last and the beginning of the present century,--

Our

first

visit was to the lions,

379

says Addison in the

Freeholder.

In the royal menagerie was used as a foundation for the collection. To the right is a terrace along the bank of the Thames, where we should walk to admire the wide reach of the Thames, here called , crowded with shipping, so that seems to be walking through a gallery of beautiful Vanderveldes. The steps leading to the river are the Queen's Stairs (once much wider), where the sovereigns embarked for their coronations. The wharf from which we are gazing is the same which-twice destroyed and twice rebuilt during his reign-made Henry III. so excessively unpopular with the Londoners.

A monk of St. Alban's, who tells the tale, asserts that a priest who was passing near the fortress saw the spirit of an archbishop, dressed in his robes, holding a cross, and attended by the spirit of a clerk, gazing sternly on these new works. As the priest came up, the figure spake to the masons, Why build ye these? As he spoke he struck the walls sharply with the holy cross, on which they reeled and sank into the river, leaving a wreath of smoke behind. The priest was too much scared to accost the more potent spirit; but he turned, to the humble clerk and asked him the archbishop's name- St. Thomas the Martyr, said the shade. . . . The ghost further informed the priest that the two most popular saints in our calendar, the Confessor and the Martyr, had undertaken to make war upon these walls. Had they been built, said the shade, for the defence of London, and in order to find food for masons and joiners, they might have been borne; but they are built against the poor citizens; and if St. Thomas had not destroyed them, the Confessor would have swept them away. The names of these popular saints still cling to the Watergate. One of the rooms, fitted up as an oratory, and having a piscina still perfect, is called the Confessor's Chapel; and the barbican itself, instead of bearing its official name of Watergate, is only known as St. Thomas's tower.--Hepworth Dixon.

An arch beneath the terrace forms the approach to the , through which the water formerly reached to the stairs within the gloomy low-browed arch which we still

380

see. Here it was that Anne Boleyn was landed, having been hurried hither without warning from a tournament at Greenwich, and fell upon her knees upon the steps, praying God to defend her, as she was innocent of the crime of which she was accused. Here, eighteen years after, her daughter Elizabeth stepped on shore, exclaiming,

Here landeth as true a subject, being a prisoner, as ever landed at these stairs, and before thee, O God, I speak it.

Fuller mentions the proverb,

A loyal heart may be landed at Traitor's Gate

--

That gate misnamed, through which before, Went Sidney, Russell, Raleigh, Cranmer, More. Rogers' Human Life.

In the room over the gate died the last Lord Grey of Wilton () after years of cruel imprisonment-on accusation of wishing to marry Lady Arabella Stuart without permission of James I.

Beyond the Traitor's Gate, guarding the outer ward towards the river, were the , the , and the . Near the last was the approach called the

Returning to the main entrance, we pass into the through the (so called from the password given on entering it), having on the left the Bell Tower, in which Bishop Fisher and Lady Arabella Stuart were confined. There is a similar

Bell Tower

at Windsor, there almost the only remnant of the ancient castle.

We should examine the Traitor's Gate as we pass it. The walls, both at the sides and in front towards the river, are perforated with little passages, with loopholes from

381

which the Lieutenant of the Tower could watch, unseen, the arrival of the prisoners. We may linger a moment at the top of its steps also, to recollect that it was here that as Sir Thomas More was being led back to prison, after his condemnation, with the fatal sign of the reversed axe carried before him, his devoted daughter Margaret, who had been watching unrecognised amid the crowd, burst through the
guards and flinging herself upon his neck, besought his blessing.

The blushing maid Who through the streets as through a desert stray'd, And when her dear, dear father passed along, Would not be held; but bursting through the throng, Halberd and axe, kissed him o«er and o«er, Then turned and wept, then sought him as before, Believing she should see his face no more. Rogers' Human Life.

382

Margaret was forced away from her father, but a time broke away and threw her arms round his neck, with such piteous cries of

Oh my father, my father!

that the very guards were melted into tears, while he,

remitting nothing of his steady gravity,

gave her his solemn blessing and besought her

to resign herself to God's blessed pleasure, and to bear her loss with patience.

 

Immediately opposite the Traitor's Gate, another ancient arch with a portcullis admits us to the . The old ring on the left of the arch is that to which the rope was fastened, stretched across the roadway, from the boat which brought in the prisoners. This is altogether the most picturesque point in the building. It is called the , from the belief that here the sons of Edward

383

IV. were murdered by order of their uncle Richard III. There is not, however, any proof that, if the murder was committed, it occurred here, and the present name has only been given to the place since the reign of Elizabeth: it was previously called

the Garden Tower,

because it joined the constable's garden, which now forms part of the parade.

Though there is no proof that the princes were murdered here, a very old tradition points out the angle at the foot of the wall, outside the gate on the right, as the place of their hasty burial by their reputed assassins, Dighton and Forrest, before their removal by Richard III. to the foot of the staircase in the White Tower.

The gate looks the same now as it did when Sir Thomas Wyatt passed through it to his prison, when Sir John Bridges seized him and shook him by the collar, calling him names and saying--

but that the law must pass upon thee, I would stick thee with my dagger

--

To the which,

says Holinshed,

Wyatt, holding his arms under his side, and looking grievously with a grim look upon the lieutenant, said,

It is no mastery now,

and so passed on.

It is from the little portico on the right within the Bloody Gate that nightly, at ii P.M., the sentry of the guard challenges the Chief Warder having the keys of the fortress --

Who goes there?

Keys.

Whose keys?

Queen Victoria's keys.

Upon which the Warder exclaims,

God bless Queen Victoria.

The soldiers respond, the keys pass on, and the guard disperse.

Just within the gate, on the right, some steps lead into the , where the Regalia is now kept. This tower, which is said to derive its name from the prisoners kept here after the Battle of Wakefield, has a beautiful

384

vaulted roof. Opening from the raised recess of the window on the south side is the oratory of Henry VI., which tradition points out as the scene of his murder. The centre of the chamber is occupied by a great glass-case containing , with the magnificent gold plate used at Coronation banquets. The collection of plate and jewels here
is valued at millions. The most important objects are-

The Queen's State Crown, made 1838. It is covered with precious stones. In front, in the centre of a cross of diamonds, is the famous ruby given to the Black Prince by Don Pedro of Castile (1367) after the Battle of Najera. Henry V. wore it in his helmet at the Battle of Agincourt.

St. Edward's Crown, made for the Coronation of Charles.II., and used ever since at coronations. It replaced a crown destroyed during the Commonwealth, which tradition ascribed to the Confessor.

The Prince of Wales's Crown, of gold, without jewels.

The Crown used for the Queen's Consort, of gold, set with diamonds and precious stones.

The Queen's Circlet, made for Mary of Modena, wife of James II.

The Orb, a ball of gold, set with jewels and surmounted by a cross, held by the sovereigns in their right hand at coronation, and carried in their left on their return to Westminster Hall. This is a badge of universal authority, borrowed from the Roman emperors.

St. Edward's Staff, a golden sceptre carried before the sovereign at coronation.

The King's Sceptre with the Cross, which is placed in the right hand of the sovereign at coronation by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The King's Sceptre with the Dove, surmounted by a cross, with a dove as the emblem of Mercy.

The Queen's Sceptre with the Cross.

The Queen's Ivory Rod, an ivory sceptre, with a golden cross and dove, made for Mary of Modena.

The Armillae, or Bracelets, worn by sovereigns at coronations.

The Royal Spurs, carried by ancient custom at coronations by the Lords Grey de Ruthyn, as representatives of the Earls of Hastings.

The Ampulla, or golden eagle, which holds the consecrated oil at coronations. The spoon belonging to the Ampulla is the oldest piece of plate in the collection.

The Curtana, or Sword of Mercy, carried at coronations between the Swords of Temporal and Spiritual Justice.

The Salt-cellar of State-a model of the White Tower.

The Silver Fountain, presented to Charles II. by the town of Plymouth

.

The Silver Font, used at the baptisms of the royal children.

The crown jewels have frequently been pledged by the English kings to Flemish and French merchants. A determined attempt to carry them off was made by an Irishman named Thomas Blood in the reign of Charles II. He was a desperate ruffian, who, amongst other wild deeds, had carried off the Duke of Ormond and very nearly succeeded in hanging him at Tyburn to avenge the deaths of some of his associates in a Dublin insurrection, when the Duke was Lord Lieutenant. On the present occasion he came

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with his supposed wife to see the Regalia, and while there the woman pretended to be taken ill, and her being conveyed into the rooms of Talbot Edwards, the Deputy-keeper, then years old, was made the pretext for an acquaintance, which ended in a proposition on the part of Blood to bring about a marriage between his son and the daughter of Edwards. Some days after he returned with the imaginary bridegroom and other companions, and, while waiting for the lady, begged to show them the crown jewels. Edwards complied, and, as soon as the door, according to custom, was locked on the inside, they gagged the old man, beat him till he was half senseless, and began to pack up the regalia. Fortunately young Edwards returned from Flanders at that moment and arrived to see his father. The old keeper, hearing him, contrived to cry out

Murder,

and the conspirators made off, Blood carrying the crown, and of his companions, Perrot, the orb. They were pursued and seized. The most extraordinary part of the story is, that backed by the reminiscence of his attack on the Duke of Ormond, Blood so contrived to terrify the king by his account of the vengeance which his friends would take in case of his execution, that he was not only released, but allowed a pension of a year! while poor old Edwards, promised a pension which was never paid, was allowed to die almost in destitution.

Before the Regalia were removed hither, the Wakefield Tower was used as a Record office. It was here that Selden, with Sir Robert Cotton, searched for the precedents upon which the Petition of Rights was founded. Here also Prynne forgot the loss of his ears in compiling materials for his books, for when some asked Charles II. at

387

the Restoration what should be done to keep Prynne quiet, he said,

Let him amuse himself with writing against the Catholics and poring over the records in the Tower,

of which he forthwith gave him the custody, with a salary of a year.

The centre of the Inner Ward is occupied by the mighty , an immense quadrangular building with corner turrets, and pierced with Norman arches and windows. Below it, on the south, under an open roof, are preserved several curious specimens of early guns, chiefly of the time of Henry VIII., the earliest dating from Henry VI. The most interesting pieces are

the Great Harry

of Henry VIII. and a gun inscribed

Thomas Semeur Knyght was Master of the King's Ordynannce when John and Robert Owen Brethren made thys Pece, Anno Domini

1546

.

If there be any truth in the proverb, As long as Megg of Westminster, it relateth to a great gun, lying in the Tower, commonly call'd Long Megg, and in troublesome times (perchance upon Ill May-day in the reign of King Henry the Eighth) brought to Westminster, where for a good time it continued. But this nut (perchance) deserves not the cracking.-Fuller's Worthies.

At the south-west angle is the entrance of the , through which visitors are usually hurried full speed by the warders. The gallery is decorated, fantastically and rather absurdly, with weapons. In the centre are equestrian figures in suits of armour, illustrating the different reigns from Edward I. to James II. The suits of armour are all ascribed to different kings or knights, but for the most part without authority.

The collection is a fine , but not to be compared to those of Madrid and Vienna, or even to that of Turin.

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Suits which really belonged to those to whom they are assigned, and which therefore especially require notice, are-

Right (in the recess). The glorious suit (of German manufacture) presented to Henry VIII. on his marriage with Katharine of Arragon. There is a similar suit in the Belvidere at Vienna.

The badges of this king and queen, the rose and the pomegranate, are engraved on various parts of the armour. On the fans of the genouilleres is the Sheaf of Arrows, the device adopted by Ferdinand, the father of Katharine, on his conquest of Granada. Henry's badges, the Portcullis, the Fleur-de-lys, and the Red Dragon, also appear; and on the edge of the larr oys or skirts are the initials of the royal pair, H. K., united by a true lover's knot. The same letters similarly united by a knot, which includes also a curious love-badge, formed of a half rose and half pomegranate, are engraved on the croupiere of the horse. But the most remarkable part of the embellishment of this suit consists in the saintly legends which are engraved upon it. These consist of ten subjects, full of curious costume, and indicating curious manners.--Hewitt's Tower Armouries.

Suit of russet armour, covered with filigree work, of the time of Edward VI. The horse armour is adorned with the badges of Burgundy and Granada. It probably belonged to the Archduke Philip, who married the unfortunate Joanna, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. This horse armour is believed to have been presented to Henry VII. when Philip and Joanna were forced by storms to take refuge in England in 1506.

Left. Another suit of Henry VIII.-probably authentic.

Tilting suit which belonged to Robert Dudley, Elizabeth's Earl of Leicester. Observe the initials R. D. on the genouillères, and the Bear and Ragged Staff on the chanfron of the horse, encircled by the collar of the garter. This suit was originally gilt.

Gilt suit of the Earl of Essex (1581), which was worn by the king's champion at George II.'s coronation.

Gilt suit of Charles I. given by the Armourers' Company. This suit was laid on the coffin of the Duke of Marlborough at his funeral.

Gilt suit made for Henry, Prince of Wales. eldest son of James I., as a child.

Suit made for Charles II. in his fifth year.

Armour attributed to James II. The head is interesting as having been carved by Grinling Gibbons as a portrait of Charles II.

The oldest piece of armour here is an Asiatic suit of the time of the Crusades, brought from Tong Castle, in Shropshire.

In a cabinet in the recess at the end of the armoury (right) are the awful Headsman's Mask, and the Burgonet of Will Somers, jester to Sir Thomas More and afterwards to Henry VIII.: it is a kind of head-piece, with ram's horns.

A staircase leads (passing through some imitation pillars and a Norman doorway formed out of a window) to Queen Elizabeth's armoury. Here also the old Norman walls are everywhere spoilt by deal panelling and a ridiculous decoration of pistols, sabres, &c., arranged in the forms of feathers or flowers. At the foot of the stairs is a curious suit of armour sent to Charles II. by the Great Mogul.

On the left of is a dark cell falsely called the prison of Sir Walter Raleigh. At the entrance are inscriptions left by prisoners after Sir Thomas Wyatt's rebellion-

He that indvreth to the ende shall be savid M. 10. R. Hudson. Kent. Ano. 1553.

Be faithful vnto the deth and I wil give thee a crowne of life. T. Fane. 1554.

T. Culpeper of Darford.

The Armoury is closed by a ludicrous figure of Elizabeth on horseback, as she is supposed to have appeared at Tilbury Fort. The objects especially to be observed here are-

The Instruments of Torture-thumbscrews; bilboes; the torture-cravat called

Skeffington's daughter

after its inventor; and a Spanish collar of torture taken in the Armada.

The Axe which is said to have beheaded the Earl of Essex.

The Block used at (and made for) the executions of Balmerino, Kilmarnock, and Lovat.

Returning to the outside of the Tower, we find a staircase. On its landing (as an inscription tells) some

390

bones were found in the reign of Charles II., and were buried in as those of the princes, sons of Edward IV. Edward V. was at the time of his death, his brother Richard . Their murder has never been proved and is still of the mysteries of history: Heywood, by his play of Edward IV., has assisted the belief in it. He thus describes their arrival here with their uncle Gloster.

Prince Edward.Uncle, what gentleman is that?

Gloster.It is, sweet Prince, Lieutenant of the Tower.

Prince Edward.Sir, we are come to be your guests to-night. I pray you, tell me, did you ever know Our father, Edward, lodge within this place?

Brackenbury.Never to lodge, my liege, but oftentimes On other occasions I have seen him here.

Prince Richard.Brother, last night when you did send for me, My mother told me, hearing we should lodge Within the Tower, that it was a prison, And therefore marvell'd that my uncle Gloster, Of all the houses for a king's receipt Within this city, had appointed none Where you might keep your court but only here.

Gloster.Vile brats! how they do descant on the Tower. My gentle nephew, they were ill-advised To torture you with such unfitting terms (Whoe'er they were) against this royal mansion. What if some part of it hath been reserved To be a prison for nobility, Follows it therefore that it cannot serve To any other use? Caesar himself, That built the same, within it kept his court, And many kings since him; the rooms are large, The building stately, and for strength beside It is the safest and the surest hold you have.

Prince Edward.Uncle of Gloster, if you think it so, «Tis not for me to contradict your will; We must allow it and are well content.

Gloster.On then, in God's name.

Prince Edward.Yet before we go, One question more with you, Master Lieutenantc We like you well; and, but we do perceive More comfort in your looks than in these wall, For all our uncle Gloster's friendly speech, Our hearts would be as heavy still as lead. I pray you, tell me, at which door or gate Was it my uncle Clarence did go in When he was sent a prisoner--to this place?

Brackenbury.At this, my liege! Why sighs your Majesty?

Prince Edward.He went in here that ne'er came back again I But as God hath decreed, so let it be! Come, brother, shall we go?

Prince Richard.Yes, brother, anywhere with you.

Heywood thus pourtrays the night before the murder:

Scene, a Bedroom in the Tower-enter the two young Princes in their bedgowns and caps. Richard.How does your lordship? Edward.Well, good brother Richard. How does yourself? You told me your head ached. Richard.Indeed it does; my lord, feel with your hands How hot it is! Edward.Indeed you have caught cold With sitting yesternight to hear me read; I pray thee go to bed, sweet Dick, poor little heart! Richard.You'll give me leave to wait upon your lordship. Edward.I had more need, brother, to wait on you; For you are sick, and so am not I. Richard.Oh lord! methinks this going to our bed, How like it is to going to our grave. Edward.I pray thee do not speak of graves, sweet heart, Indeed thou frightest me. Richard.Why, my lord brother, did not out tutor teach us, That when at night we went unto our bed We still should think we went unto our grave. Edward.Yes, that's true If we should do as every Christian ought, To be prepared to die at any hour. But I am heavy. Richard.Indeed, so am I. Edward.Then let us say our prayers and go to bea. They kneel, and solemn music within: it ceases and they rise. Richard.What, bleeds your grace? Edward.Ay, two drops, and no more. Richard.God bless us both; and I desire no more. Edward.Brother, see here what David says, and so say I: Lord, in thee will I trust although I die. Parts I. and II.

Hence a winding stair leads to (of ), the most perfect Norman chapel in England, encircled by heavy circular pillars with square cornices and bases, and a very wide triforium over the aisles. The stilted horseshoe arches of the apse resemble on a small scale those of St. Bartholomew the Great. is modern but admirably adapted to the place. Here, while he was kneeling in prayer, Brackenbury, the Lieutenant of the Tower, received an order to murder the young Edward V. and his brother, and refused to obey it; here Mary attended a mass for her brother Edward VI. at the time of his funeral; and here the Duke of Northumberland, father-in-law of Lady Jane Grey, heard mass and publicly

kneeled down and axed all men forgiveness, and likewise forgave all men,

before his execution.

It is on this floor of the White Tower that Flambard, Bishop of Durham, Griffin, Prince of Wales, John Baliol, and the Duke of Orleans were confined. Baliol especially lived here in great state, with an immense household.

Adjoining the chapel was the ancient , now filled with weapons. The upper floor, also now divided as an armoury, was the in which Richard II. abdicated in favour of Henry IV.

King Richard was released from his prison, and entered the hall which had been prepared for the occasion, royally dressed, the sceptre in his hand and the crown on his head, but without supporters on either side. He addressed the company as follows: I have reigned king of England, duke of Aquitaine, and lord of Ireland about twenty-two years, which royalty, lordship, sceptre, and crown I now freely and willingly resign to my cousin, Henry of Lancaster, and entreat of him, in the. presence of you all, to accept this sceptre. He then tendered the sceptre to the duke of Lancaster, who took it and gave it to the archbishop of Canterbury. King Richard next raised the crown with his two hands from his head, and, placing it before him, said,-- Henry, fair cousin, and duke of Lancaster, I present and give to you this crown, with which I was crowned king of England, and all the rights dependent on it. The duke of Lancaster received it, and delivered it over to the archbishop of Canterbury, who was at hand to take it. These two things being done, and the resignation accepted, the duke of Lancaster called in a public notary, that an authentic act should be drawn up of this proceeding, and witnessed by the lords and prelates then present. Soon after the king was conducted to where he had come from, and the duke and other lords mounted their horses to return home. --Froissart.

Shakspeare has introduced the speech of King Richard-

I give this heavy weight from off my head,

And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand,

The pride of kingly sway from out my heart;

With mine own tears I wash away my balm,

With mine own hands I give away my crown,

With mine own tongue deny my sacred state,

With mine own breath release all duteous oaths:

All pomp and majesty I do forswear;

My manors, rents, revenues I forego;

My acts, decrees, and statutes I deny:

God pardon all oaths that are broke to me!

God keep all oaths unbroke are made to thee

Make me, that nothing have, with nothing griev'd;

And thou with all pleas'd, that hast all achiev'd 1

Long mayst thou live, in Richard's seat to sit,

And soon lie Richard in an earthen pit!

God save King Henry, unling'd Richard says,

And send Hm many years of sunshine days

Here also occurred that stranger scene in , when the Protector (afterwards Richard III.), coming in amongst the

394

lords in council, asked the Bishop of Ely to send for some strawberries from his famous garden in . It is irresistible to quote Sir Thomas More's graphic account of what followed.

The protector set the lords fast in communing, and thereupon praying them to spare him for a little while, departed thence. And soon after one hour, between 10 and 11 , he returned into the chamber among them, all changed, with a wonderful sour, angry countenance, knitting the brows, frowning and frothing and gnawing on the lips; and so sat him down in his place, all the lords much dismayed and sore marvelling of this manner of sudden change, and what thing should him ail. Then, when he had sitten still a while, thus he began: What were they worthy to have, that compass and imagine the destruction of me, being so near of blood unto the king, and protector of his royal person and his realm? At this question all the lords sate sore astonished, musing much by whom this question should be meant, of which every man wist himself clear. Then the lord-chamberlain,Lord Hastings, whose wife, Catherine Neville, was Richard's first cousin. as he who for the love between them thought he might be boldest with him, answered and said that they were worthy to be punished as heinous traitors whoever they were. And all the others affirmed the same. That is, quoth he, yonder sorceress, my brother's wife, and another with her, meaning the queen. Then said the protector, Ye shall all see in what wise that sorceress, and that other witch, of her counsel, Shore's wife, with their affinity, have by their sorcery and witchcraft wasted my body. And therewith he plucked up his doublet-sleeve to his elbow, upon his left arm, when he shewed a werish withered arm and small, as it was never other. And thereupon every man's mind sore misgave him, well perceiving that this matter was but a quarrel. For well they wist that the queen was too wise to go about any such folly. And also, if she would, yet would she, of all folk, least make Shore's wife of counsel, whom of all women she most hated, as that concubine whom the king her husband had most loved. And also no man was there present but well knew that his arm was ever such since his birth. Nevertheless the lord-chamberlain answered and said, Certainly, my lord, if they have so heinously done, they be worthy heinous punishment. What, quoth the protector, thou servest me ill I ween with ifs and with ands; I tell thee they have so done, and that I will make good on thy body, traitor. And therewith, as in a great anger, he clapped his fist upon the board a great rap; at which token given, one cried treason without. the chamber. Therewith a.door clapped, and in came there rushing men in harness as many as the chamber might hold. And anon the protector said to the Lord Hastings, I arrest thee, traitor. What me, my lord? quoth he. Yea thee, traitor, quoth the protector. And another let fly at the Lord Stanley, who shrunk at the stroke, and fell under the table, or else his head had been cleft to the teeth; for, as shortly as he shrank, yet the blood ran about his. ears. Then were they all quickly bestowed in divers chambers; except the lord-chamberlain, whom the protector bad speed and shrive him apace, for by S. Paul, quoth he, I will not to dinner till I see thy head off. It booted him not to ask why ; but heavily he took a priest at adventure, and made a short shrift; for a longer would not be suffered, the protector made so much haste to dinner, which he might not go to till this were done, for saving of his oath. So was he brought forth into the green, beside the chapel within the Tower, and his head laid down upon a long log of timber, and there stricken off; and afterward his body with the head interred at Windsor, beside the body of King Edward; both whose souls our Lord pardon!-Life of Richard III.

Having looked out of the window whence Richard beheld the execution on Tower Green, we may enter the broad triforium of Chapel, whence there was a communication with the royal apartments.

There is a glorious view from the leads on the summit of the White Tower. Greenwich is visible on a fine day. The turrets are restorations. In that by which we enter (N.E.) King John imprisoned the beautiful Maud, daughter of Robert Fitzwalter of Baynard's Castle.

The vaults of the White Tower were used as prisons, though there is, no authority for the statement of the Warders that Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More were imprisoned there. As we descend, we may see the remains

396

of the old staircase on the right: a sword shown as Smith O«Brien's is kept there. The holes in which the rack was fixed upon which Anne Askew was tortured are still to be seen in the floor of the vault. Burnet narrates that the Lord Chancellor Wriothesley, throwing off his coat, himself drew it so severely that he almost tore her body asunder. In the prison called Guy Fawkes was imprisoned, with his companions, and here he was racked, and confessed after minutes of torture. On a wall in of the vaults is the inscription,

Sacris vestris indutus, dum sacra mysteria servans, captus et in hoc angusto carcere inclusus. T. Fisher

--probably by a Jesuit priest involved in the conspiracy.

The Armouries and the Regalia are the sights usually shown to strangers. Those really interested in the Tower will obtain leave to make the circuit of the smaller towers, of which there were encircling the Inner Ward. Returning to the Bloody Gate, and ascending the steps on the right they will be shown the rooms over the gateway which are full of curious or great reminiscences.

On the wall of a small chamber (left) on the floor is an inscription by the Bishop of Ross, so long an active partisan of Mary, Queen of Scots, who, while here, confessed the Norfolk and Northumberland plots in her favour, and declared her privy to the death of Darnley: only the name is now legible, the rest of the inscription having been chipped by axes in the time of the Commonwealth. Another room on this floor is that whither Felton, the murderer of Buckingham, was brought to prison, blessed by the people on his way. Here also Colonel Hutchinson was imprisoned after the Restoration-

It was a great dark

room,

says Mrs. Hutchinson,

with no window in it, and the portcullis of a gate was drawn up within it, and below there sate every night a court of guard.

The same prison was afterwards occupied by a very different character, James II.'s Judge Jeffreys, who was taken at in the dress of a sailor by a man he had injured, and who died here of drinking, having, during his imprisonment, been insulted by receiving a present of a barrel, apparently containing Colchester oysters, but really a halter.

On the upper floor is the room where the supposed murder of the Princes took place. Its window opens upon a narrow passage by which the assassins are said to have entered from the outside walk upon the walls. The rooms have been subdivided in late times. In of them Margaret Cheyne was imprisoned, the wild woman who excited the pilgrim-invasion of Yorkshire in the reign of Henry VIII., its object being to overthrow the power of Cromwell and restore Catherine of Arragon. Here Dudley, Earl of Northumberland, father-in-law of Lady Jane Grey, was imprisoned, and hence he was led to the scaffold. Here was the prison of Archbishop Cranmer. Henry, Earl of Northumberland, imprisoned for exciting a Catholic crusade against Elizabeth, shot himself here, , to avoid the confiscation of his estates. In the same room Sir Thomas Overbury, in the reign of James I., underwent slow agonies of poisoning at the hands of the Earl and Countess of Somerset and their minions. Here also Sir Walter Raleigh lived through his and longest imprisonment of years, being accused of a plot in favour of Lady Arabella Stuart. His imprisonment was not rendered unnecessarily severe, and his wife and son

398

were allowed to live near him in the Tower. In the still existing room he wrote his and burnt its volume as a sacrifice to Truth on being convinced that a murder, which he fancied that he had seen from his prison window, was only an optical delusion.[n.398.1]  Here he received the visits of Ben Jonson and other clever men of the time, and of Prince Henry, who said,

No man but my father would keep such a bird in such a cage.

In the adjoining garden he used to work, to cultivate rare plants, and distil curious essences from them. The narrow walk upon the wall, connected with these apartments, is still called

We should next visit the , where Mrs. Hutchinson was born, being the daughter of Sir Allan Apsley, Lieutenant of the Tower. On the ground floor we may see the curious of the Chief Warder, which was carried before the Lieutenant when he accompanied prisoners to the . As they returned, the axe was carried before the prisoner. If the trial was not finished the face of the axe was away from him; if he was condemned it was turned towards him: thus those watching through the loopholes of the Traitor's Gate knew his fate at once.

To the south room on the upper floor Guy Fawkes and his friends were brought for examination before Cecil, Nottingham, Mountjoy, and Northampton. Cecil wrote of Guy Fawkes,

He is no more dismayed than if he were taken for a poor robbery on the highway.

There is a fine bust in wood of James I. over the chimney-piece, and the names of the conspirators are given on of a set of

399

tablets on the left, which contain curious Latin inscriptions put up by Sir William Waad, Lieutenant of the Tower, to flatter the vainglorious James I., from some of which the following are translated:--

James the Great, King of Great Britain, illustrious for piety, justice, foresight, learning, hardihood, clemency, and the other royal virtues; champion and patron of the Christian faith, of the public safety, and of universal peace; author most subtle, most august, and most auspicious.

Queen Anne, the most serene daughter of Frederick the Second, invincible King of the Danes.

Prince Henry, ornament of nature, strengthened with learning, blest with grace, born and given to us from God.

Charles, Duke of York, divinely disposed to every virtue.

Elizabeth, full sister of both, most worthy of her parents.

Do Thou, all-seeing, protect these as the apple of the eye, and guard them without fear from wicked men beneath the shadow of thy wings.

To Almighty God, the guardian, arrester, and avenger, who has punished this great and incredible conspiracy against our most merciful Lord the King, our most serene Lady the Queen, our divinely disposed Prince, and the rest of our Royal House; and against all persons of quality, our ancient nobility, our soldiers, prelates, and judges; the authors and advocates of which conspiracy, Romanised Jesuits, of perfidious, Catholic, and serpent-like ungodliness, with others equally criminal and insane, were moved by the infamous desire of destroying the true Christian religion, and by the treasonous hope of overthrowing the kingdom, root and branch; and which was suddenly, wonderfully, and divinely detected, at the very moment when the ruin was impending, on the 5th day of November, in the year of grace 1605. William Waad, whom the King has appointed his Lieutenant of the Tower, returns on the ninth of October, in the sixth year of the reign of James the First, 1608, his great and everlasting thanks.

This is the room where Pepys (-)

did go to dine with Sir J. Robinson, his ordinary table being very good, and his lady a very high-carriaged, but comely-big woman.

James, Duke of Monmouth, taken as a fugitive from Sedgemoor, was imprisoned in the Lieutenant's lodgings () till his execution.

We now reach the , so called from being surmounted by a wooden turret, containing the alarm bell of the garrison. At the entrance of the upper room from the walk upon the wall is the inscription-

Bi . tortvre . stravnge . my . trovth . was. tried . yet . of . my. lybertie . denied: ther . for. reson . hath. me . perswaded . that . pasyens . mvst . be . ymbrasyd: thogh . hard . fortvne . chasyth . me. wyth. smart . yet . pasyens . shall. prevayl.

The curious vaulted chamber of the Bell Tower is that where John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, was imprisoned in his eightieth year. He was condemned for treason because he believed in the prophecies of the Maid of Kent, who said that a judgment would follow Henry VIII.'s divorce of Katherine of Aragon.

You believe the prophecies,

said Cromwell,

because you wish them to be true.

From the Bell Tower he wrote piteously to Cromwell,

I beseech you to be good master in my necessity; for I have neither shirt, nor suit, nor yet other clothes that are necessary for me to wear, but that be ragged and rent too shamefully. Notwithstanding, I might easily suffer that, if I could keep my body warm. But my diet also, God knoweth how slender it is at many times. And now in mine age, my stomach may not away but with a few kinds of meats, which, if I want, I decay forthwith.

While Fisher was in prison the Pope, to comfort him, sent him a cardinal's hat.

Fore God,

said the king,

if he wear it he shall wear it on his shoulders,

and his death-warrant was signed, so that

his cardinal's hat and his head never met together.

[n.400.1]  The old man put on his best suit for what he called his marriage day, and went forth gladly to the scaffold, with his New

401

Testament in his hand. It opened at the passage,

This is life eternal, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

The Bell Tower is said to have been also the prison of the Princess Elizabeth, but it is more probable that she was confined in the royal apartments. It is certain that after a month's strict confinement she was allowed to walk in the Queen's Garden. Arabella Stuart, however, who had married Sir William Seymour,

with the love which laughs at privy councils,

[n.401.1]  certainly languished here for years after her capture in Calais roads while attempting to escape with her husband to France.

What passed in that dreadful imprisonment cannot perhaps be recovered for authentic history; but enough is known; that her mind grew impaired, that she finally lost her reason, and if the duration of her imprisonment (four years) was short, it was only terminated by her death. Some loose effusions, often begun and never ended, written and erased, incoherent and rational, yet remain in the fragments of her papers. In a letter she proposed addressing to Viscount Fenton, to implore for her his majesty's favour again, she says, Good my lord, consider the fault cannot be uncommitted; neither can any more be required of any earthly creature but confession and most humble submission. In a paragraph she had written, but crossed out, it seems that a present--of her work had been refused by the King, and that she had no one about her whom she might trust.-D«Israeli. Curiosities of Literature.

Where London's towres theire turrets show So stately by the Thames's side, Faire Arabella, childe of woe! For many a day had sat and sighed. And as shee heard the waves arise, And as shee heard the bleak windes roare, So faste did heave her heartfelte sighes, And still so faste her teares did poure. From Evans's Old Ballads (probably by Mickle).

Adjoining the Bell Tower is a room with an ancient chimney-piece inscribed-

Upon the

twentieth

daie of June in yere of our Lord a

thousand five hundred three

score and

five

, was the Right honorable countes of Lennox Grace committede prysoner to thys lodgynge for the marreage of her sonne my Lord Henry Darnle and the Queen of Scotland. Here is their names that do'wayte upon her noble Grace in thys plase-M. Elizh. Hussey, M. Jane Baily, M. Elizh. Chamberlen, M. Robarte Partington, Edward Cuffin, Anno Domini

1566

.

This is a memorial of Margaret, Countess of Lennox, cousin of Queen Elizabeth, being the daughter of Margaret, Queen of Scotland, by her marriage with the Earl of Angus. She was imprisoned on the marriage, and released on the murder, of Darnley. She died in great poverty (leaving grandchildren, James IV., son of Henry, and Arabella, daughter of Charles Stuart), and was buried in state at at the expense of Elizabeth.

In the centre of the west side of the court is the , which probably derived its name from Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, having been imprisoned there by Richard II. before his removal to the Isle of Man, in . The room on the upper story of this tower is of the most interesting in the fortress. It is surrounded by a number of arched embrasures, and the walls are half covered with inscriptions from the hands of its prisoners, which will be found of the greatest interest by those who see them on the spot, though a description of them here is dull reading. We may notice-

Right of First Recess. In old Italian.--Dispoi: che: vole: la: fortvna: che: la : mea: speransa: va: al: vento: pianger: ho: volio : el: tempo: perdvto: e: semper : stel: me: tristo : e: discontèto: Wilim : Tyrrel. 1541.

Over the Fireplace. The autograph of Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, eldest son of Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, beheaded 1572, for the sake of Mary, Queen of Scots. Quanto plus afflictionis pro Christo in hoc saeculo, tanto plus glories cum Christo in futuro. Arundell. June 22, 1587. Gloria et honore eum coronasti Domine. In memoria eterna erit justus. Lord Arundel, having embraced the Catholic faith, had wished to emigrate, but was seized, and imprisoned on an accusation of unlawfully supporting Catholic priests. The joy he expressed on hearing of the Spanish Armada caused his being tried in Westminster Hall and condemned to death, but he was reprieved and languished all his life in prison. Elizabeth vainly offered his restoration to liberty, riches, and honour, if he would renounce his faith. He died Oct. 19, 1595, thus, though not without suspicion of poison, escaping the capital punishment inflicted upon his father, grandfather, and great grandfather.

Right of Fireplace. Sculpture by John Dudley, Earl of Warwick; eldest son of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, imprisoned for the cause of Lady Jane Grey, who had married his brother Lord Guildford Dudley. Beneath the lion, bear, and ragged staff, is the sculptor's name, and a border of roses (for Ambrose), oak leaves (for Robert), and two other flowers, the whole being emblematical of the names of his four brothers, imprisoned with him, as we see by the inscription- Yow that these beasts do wel behold and se, May deme with ease wherefore here made they be, With borders eke wherein---- 4 brothers names who list to serche the ground. Of the five brothers, John died in prison, Guildford was beheaded, the other three were released after six months' imprisonment.

Recess on Right of Fireplace. The inscription Dolor patientia vincitur. G. Gyfford. August 8, 1586, and another, are probably by George Gyfford, gentleman pensioner to Elizabeth, falsely accused of having sworn to kill the queen.

On the left side of the same recess is a panel adorned with lozenges, inscribed- J. H. S. 1571 . die 10o Aprilis.

Wise men ought circumspectly to se what they do; to examine before they speake; to prove before they take in hand; to beware whose company they use; and, above all things, to whom they trust. Charles Bailly.

The writer was a secret agent for Mary, Queen of Scots, arrested at Dover with letters in cipher for her, the Duke of Norfolk, and her other adherents, and harshly imprisoned and tortured on the rack to obtain additional disclosures. Amongst Lord Burghley's State Papers there is a touching letter from him to that statesman--For God's sake, and for the passion which he suffered for us, take pitie of me; and bend your mercy full eyes towards me, Charles Bailly, a poore prisoner and stranger who have no frend at all to help me with a penny, and am allready naked and torne.

Another inscription by the same hand is- Principium sapientie timor Domini. I.H.S. X.P.S. Be frend to one. Be ennemye to none. Anno D. 1571. 10 Sept. The most unhappy man in the world is he that is not patient in adversities; For men are not killed with the adversities they have: but with ye impacience which they suffer. Tout vient apoient, quy peult attendre. Gli sospiri ne son testimoni veri dell» angoscia mia. et. 29. Charles Bailly.

A third inscription by the same has simply the name and the date, 1571.

Close to this is--1570. JHON Store. Doctor. This Store or Story was a member of the House of Commons, who was committed on the accession of Elizabeth, for the vehemence with which he spoke against the Reformation, but escaped to Antwerp. He was, however, ensnared on board an English ship, carried back to the Tower, and condemned and cruelly executed for the Roman Catholic faith, with tortures even more barbarous than those used against Protestants. He was drawn on a hurdle to Tyburn, hung, cut down while still alive, and struggled with the executioner while he was being disembowelled!

Passing over inscriptions by persons of whom nothing is known, we find-

Third Recess-

(Left side.) T. C. I leve in hope and I gave credit to mi frinde in time did stande me most in hande. So wovlde I never do againe, excepte I hade hime suer in bande; and to al men wishe I so, unles ye sussteine the leke lose as I do. Unhappie is that mane whose actes doth procuer The miseri of this hous in prison to induer. 1576. Thomas Clarke.

(Right side.) Hit is the poynt of a wyse man to try and then trvste. For hapy is he who fyndeth one that is jvste. T. C.

These are believed to be by Thomas Clarke, a Roman Catholic priest who recanted at St. Paul's Cross, July i, 1593.

Below the first of these are the lines, by a sufferer on the rack- Thomas Miagh which liethe here alone That fayne wold from hens begon By tortvre stravnge mi trovth was Tryed yet of my libertie denied

1581Thomas Myagh

are, amongst many other inscriptions, under the name Thomas Rooper, , the figure of a skeleton, and the words,

Per passage penible passons a port plaisant.

Near this is

Geffrye Poole.

1562

.

Doubtless inscribed by that descendant of George, Duke of Clarence, who was imprisoned in the Tower for life, and on whose evidence his own brother, Lord Montague, with the Marquis of Exeter and others, were beheaded.

Near this is the word JANE, supposed to refer to Lady Jane Grey and to have been cut by her husband, Lord Guildford Dudley, imprisoned here with his brothers.

Near this also is

Edmonde Poole,

which is several times repeated in the room, commemorating of the great-grandsons of George, Duke of Clarence, imprisoned here for life on accusation of wishing to supplant the Protestant religion and make Mary of Scotland queen of England. His brother Arthur Pole has left his inscriptions--

Deo. servire . penitentiam . inire. fato. obedire. regnare. est. A. Poole.

1564

. I. H. S.

and

I. H. S. A passage perillus maketh a port pleasant. Ao.

1568

. Arthur Poole. AEt. suae

37

. A.P.

.

I hope in th» end to deserve that I would have. Men: Novem: Ao.

1573

,

with the name

Hugh Longworthe

underneath and the prostrate figure of a man. This is especially curious as probably having been the work of Peter Burchet of the Middle Temple, who being imprisoned here for wounding Sir John Hawkins, murdered (to

deserve

his punishment?) his fellow-prisoner Hugh Longworth, as he was reading his Bible in this window. Burchet was hung by , Nov. II, .

.

AS : VT : IS : TAKY . Thomas Fitzgerald,

commemorates the eldest son of Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl

406

of Kildare, imprisoned for a rebellion in Ireland, and hung and quartered at Tyburn, with his uncles, .

. Under the word

Thomas

is a great A upon a bell, being the rebus of Dr. Thomas Abel, domestic chaplain to Queen Catherine of Arragon, imprisoned and executed for his fidelity to the cause of his mistress.

Near this is

Doctor Cook;

the signature of Laurence Cook, Prior of Doncaster, hung for denying the king's supremacy, and

Thomas Cobham,

1555

,

commemorating the youngest son of Lord Cobham, who was condemned for Sir Thomas Wyatt's insurrection.

The last inscription we need notice is a carving of an oak-tree with acorns and the initials

R. D.

beneath, the work of Robert Dudley, afterwards Queen Elizabeth's Earl of Leicester, who, being already married to Amy Robsart, was imprisoned with his father and brothers for the affair of Lady Jane Grey.

An illustrious prisoner of the Beauchamp Tower, who has left no memorials, is Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, who was sentenced to be burnt to death for the doctrines of Wickliffe. The people broke into the Tower and rescued him, and he remained under their protection in safety for months. After this, being forced to fly, he wandered for years through England and Wales, with set upon his head. At length he was betrayed by a Welsh follower, brought to London, and burnt before his own house in Smithfield.

On the wall at the top of this tower was the touching -

Where Raleigh pin'd, within a prison's gloom,

I cheerful sung, nor murmur'd at my doom;

Where heroes bold, and patriots firm could d«inl,

A goldfinch in content his note might swell:

But death, more gentle than the law's decree,

Hath paid my ransom from captivity.

Buried, , by a fellow-prisoner in the .

Almost opposite the Beauchamp Tower is

the Green

within the Tower

(now a gravelled space, where it is said that grass has never consented to grow since the executions) whither Hastings () was brought hastily from the council chamber in the White Tower, and where,

without time for confession or repentance, his head was struck off upon a log of timber.

A stone here marks the spot on which several of the most illustrious of the Tower-victims have suffered death, the greater part of the prisoners having been executed on . Here the beautiful Anne Boleyn walked to her death in the calm of innocence, comforting her attendants, and praying with her last breath for her brutal husband. Here the aged Countess of Salisbury, the last lineal descendant of the Plantagenets, refused to lay her head upon the block, and rushed round and round the platform, her white hair streaming on the wind, till she was hewn down by the executioner. Here a letter from an eye-witness describes the death of Queen Catherine Howard (who had been a wife only year months and days) and Lady Rochford as

the most godly and Christian end that ever was heard tell of since the world's creation.

Hither Lady Jane Grey,

the queen of

nine

days,

came to her death

without fear or grief,

attended by her faithful women, Mistress Tylney and Mistress Ellen.

These are the words that the Lady Jane spake upon the scaffold at the hour of her death. First, when she mounted upon the scaffold, she said to the people standing thereabout, Good people, I am come hither to die, and by a law I am condemned to the same. The fact against the queen's highness was unlawful, and the consenting thereunto by me: but touching the procurement and desire thereof by me or on my behalf, I do wash my hands thereof in innocency before God, and the face of you, good Christian people, this day: and therewith she wrung her hands, wherein she had her book. Then said she, I pray you all, good Christian people, to bear me witness that I die a true Christian woman, and that I do look to be saved by no other mean, but only by the mercy of God, in the blood of his only son Jesus Christ: and I confess, that when I did know the word of God, I neglected the same, loved myself and the world; and therefore this plague and punishment is happily and worthily happened unto me for my sins; and yet I thank God, that of his goodness he hath thus given me a time and respite to repent. And now, good people, while I am alive, I pray you assist me with your prayers. And then, kneeling down, she turned her to Fecknam, saying, Shall I say this psalm? and he said Yea. Then said she the psalm of Miserere mei Deus in English, in most devout manner, throughout to the end; and then she stood up, and gave her maiden, Mistress Ellen, her gloves and handkerchief, and her book to Master Burges. And then she untied her gown, and the hangman pressed upon her to help her off with it; but she, desiring him to let her alone, turned towards her two gentlewomen, who helped her off therewith, and also with her frowes, peaft and neckerchief, giving to her a fair handkerchief to bind about her eyes. Then the hangman kneeled down and asked her forgiveness, whom she forgave most willingly. Then he willed her to stand upon the straw; which doing, she saw the block. Then she said, I pray you decapitate me quickly. Then she kneeled down, saying, Will you take it off, before I lay me down? And the hangman said, No, Madam. Then tied she the handkerchief about her eyes, and feeling for the block, she said, What shall I do? Where is it? Where is it? One of the standers-by guiding her thereunto she laid her head down upon the block, and then stretched forth her body, and said, Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit; and so finished her life in the year of our Lord God, 1554, the 12th day of February.-Foxe, Acts and Monuments.

Lady Jane had the innocency of childhood, the beauty of youth, the solidity of the middle, the gravity of old age, and all at eighteen; the birth of a princess, the learning of a clerk, the life of a saint, yet the death of a malefactor for her parent's offences.-Holy State, p. 311.

On this same spot, in 1598, suffered Henry Devereux, Queen Elizabeth's Earl of Essex, having obtained his last petition, that his execution might be in private, and coming to his death more like a bridegroom than a prisoner appointed for death.

Close by, on the left (having observed the inscription Nisi Dominus Frustra over the chaplain's door), we may enter the Prisoner's Chapel, aptly dedicated to St. Peter in the Chains, built by Edward I., rebuilt by Edward III., but altered with perpendicular windows and arches in the reign of Henry VIII., and restored under Salvin, 1876-7. The chapel has always been used for the prisoners of the Tower, and it was here that the seven bishops imprisoned for conscience sake, being allowed to attend service, were consoled by the accident of the Lesson being from a Cor. vi. 3. 4 -- Giving no offence in anything, that the ministry be not blamed: but in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, &c.

The chapel contains several interesting monuments. At the N.E. corner of the north aisle is the noble alabaster tomb (originally in front of the chancel) of Sir Richard Cholmondeley, Lieutenant of the Tower under Henry VII. (ob. 1544), and his wife Elizabeth. His effigy is in plate armour with a collar of SS., his head rests on a helmet, his feet on a lion: his wife, who lies on her left side, has a pointed headdress: both the statues were once coloured and gilt. The north wall of the chancel is occupied by the tomb of Sir Richard Blount (1560) and Sir Michael Blount, his son (1592), both Lieutenants of the Tower. On the south wall of the chancel are some quaint monuments to the Carey family and the black marble tablet to Sir Allan Apsley (father of Mrs. Hutchinson), 1630. Other monuments commemorate Valentine Pyne (1677), Master Gunner of England; Sir Jonas More (1670), Surveyor-General of the Ordnance under Charles. II.; and Talbot Edwards (1674), the venerable Keeper of the Regalia at the time of the Blood conspiracy. On the east wall of the chancel are brass tablets to Sir John Fox Burgoyne, Constable of the Tower, 1870; and Lord de Ros, Deputy Lieutenant of the Tower, 1874.

But no monuments mark the graves of the most illustrious of the victims of the Tower, whose bones lie beneath the pavement. When it was taken up in 1876 some bones of a female of 25 or 30 years old were found before the altar at two feet below the ground, and have been almost conclusively identified as those of Queen Anne Boleyn, whose body, says Burnet, was, immediately after her execution, thrown into a common chest of elm-tree, that was made to put arrows in, and buried in the chapel within the Tower before twelve o'clock. Stow describes how immediately before the altar lie two Dukes between two Queens the Protector Somerset (1552) and Lady Jane Grey's Duke of Northumberland between Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard. Of the girlish Queen Katharine no bones have been found, but some male bones with a skull have been identified as those of the Duke of Northumberland, whose head was buried with him. The Duke of Monmouth, the unfortunate son of Charles II., was buried beneath the altar, where his bones exist still. On the left of Anne Boleyn (north of chancel) lies her brother, Lord Rochford; to the right of Katherine Howard (south) were her friend Lady Rochford, and the venerable Countess of Salisbury, whose bones have been identified. Behind the Queens lie Lord Guildford Dudley, Lady Jane Grey, the Duke of Suffolk, Duke of Norfolk, Earl of Arundel, Earl of Essex, and Sir Thomas Overbury.

Under a stone at the west end of the chapel rest Kilmarnock, Balmerino, and Lovat. Their coffin-plates are preserved in the vestry, inscribed-

Willielmus, Comes de Kilmarnock, Decollatus 18o. die Augusti, 1746. Aetatis sum 42o. Arthurus, Dominus de Balmerino, Decollatus 18o die Augusti, 1746. Aetatis sum 58o. Simon, Dominus Frazer de Lovat, Decollat. April 9, 1747. Aetat. suae 80. (The inscription upon which Lord Lovat looked upon the scaffold and uttered Dulce et decorum pro patri, mori.)

To the north of this, Bishop Fisher was removed from Allhallows, Barking, that he might lie near his friend Sir Thomas More. Prisoners buried in the chapel were- Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare, died in prison, 1534. John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, beheaded, 1535. Sir Thomas More, beheaded, 1535. George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford, beheaded, 1536. Queen Anne Boleyn, beheaded, 1536. Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, beheaded, 1540. Margaret Clarence, Countess of Salisbury, beheaded, 1541. Queen Catherine Howard, beheaded, 1542. Jane, Viscountess Rochford, beheaded, 1542. Thomas, Lord Seymour of Sudeley, beheaded, 1549. Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, beheaded, 1551. Sir Ralph Vane, hanged, 1552. Sir Thomas Arundel, beheaded, 1552. John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, beheaded, 1553. Lord Guildford Dudley, beheaded, 1554. Lady Jane Grey, beheaded, 1554. Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, beheaded, 1554. Arthur and Edmund Pole, grandsons of the Countess of Salisbury, died in the Tower between 1565 and 1578. Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, beheaded, 1572. Sir John Perrott, died in the Tower, 1592. Philip, Earl of Arundel, died in the Tower, 1595. Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, beheaded, 1600. Sir Thomas Overbury, Prisoner, poysoned, is the entry in the register, 1613. Thomas, Lord Grey of Wilton, died in the Tower, 1614. Sir John Eliot, died in the Tower, 1632. William, Viscount Stafford, beheaded, 1680. Arthur, Earl of Essex, cutt his own throat within the Tower, says the register, 1683. James, Duke of Monmouth, beheaded, 1685. George, Lord Jeffreys, died in the Tower, 1689 (his bones were removed in 1693). John Rotier, died in the Tower, 1703. Edward, Lord Griffin, died in the Tower, 1710. William, Marquis of Tullibardine, died in the Tower, 1746. Arthur, Lord Balmerino, beheaded, 1746. William, Earl of Kilmarnock, beheaded, 1746. Simon, Earl Frazer of Lovat, beheaded, 1747.For further particulars consult the interesting volume on the Chapel in the Tower by Doyne C. Bell.

Behind St. Peter's Chapel, at the north-west angle of the wall, is the Devereux Tower, called in the survey of Henry VIII. Robin the Devyll's Tower, and in that of 1597 the Develin Tower, but which changed its name after the Earl of Essex was confined there in 1600.

Passing the Flint Tower (rebuilt) we reach the Bowyer's Tower, so called from having been the residence of the provider of the king's bows. The only ancient part is a vaulted chamber on the ground floor, in which, according to tradition, George, Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV., was drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine.

Next, behind the barracks, is the Brick Tower, where the Master of the Ordnance resided. Here Lady Jane Grey was imprisoned. Hence she wrote her last touching words to her father, and those to her sister Katherine, Lady Herbert, on the blank leaves of her Greek Testament. From the window of this tower also, before she was herself taken to the scaffold, she beheld the headless body of her husband pass by in a cart from Tower Hill, and exclaimed, Oh, Guildford, Guildford I the ante-past is not so bitter that thou hast tasted, and which I shall soon taste, as to make my flesh tremble; it is nothing compared with that feast of which we shall partake this day in heaven.

She had before received the offer of a crown with as even a temper as if it had been a garland of flowers, and now she lays aside the thought thereof with as much contentedness as she could have thrown away that garland when the scent was gone. The time of her glories was so short, but a nine days' work, that it seemed nothing but a dream, out of which she was not sorry to be awakened.-Heylin.

In this tower Sir Walter Raleigh underwent his first imprisonment (by Elizabeth) for having seduced Elizabeth Throckmorton, one of the maids of honour, but was released on his marriage with her. Hither also, after his expedition to Guiana, he was brought for his third and last imprisonment.

The , at the north-east angle, was the prison for years of the Earl of Northumberland in the reign of James I. He was allowed to walk on the terrace between this and the Constable Tower, and to pursue his mathematical studies, under the guidance of Hariot, the astronomer. A sundial, still existing on the south face of the tower, was put up by the earl, and is the work of Hariot. Northumberland was eventually released on the intercession of his beautiful daughter, Lucy Hay, Countess of Carlisle. It was here also that the Bishops were imprisoned. As the

Jewel Tower,

this was the scene of Blood's conspiracy. This tower also was the scene of the well-known but disconnected Mr. Edward Lent.

414

hall Swift, Keeper of the Crown Jewels, stated that on a Saturday night in , he was at supper with his wife, her sister, and his little boy, in the sitting-room of the jewel-house. The room had doors and windows: between the windows a chimney-piece projected far into the room. On that evening the doors were closed, the windows curtained, and the only light was given by the candles on the table. Mr. Swift sate at the foot of the table, with his boy on his right, his wife facing the chimney, and her sister opposite. Suddenly the lady exclaimed,

Good God I what is that?

Mr. Swift then saw a cylindrical figure, like a glass tube, seemingly about the thickness of his arm, hovering between the ceiling and the table. Its contents appeared to be a dense fluid, white and pale azure, incessantly rolling within the cylinder. This lasted minutes, after which the appearance began to move round the table. Mr. Swift saw it pass behind his wife, who shrieked in an agony of terror,

Oh Christ I it has seized me l

Neither the sister nor the boy saw anything. Soon afterwards the sentry at the jewel-house was terrified by

a figure like a bear,

fell down in a fit, and died or days after.[n.414.1] 

At the foot of this tower is preserved the sculpture of the royal arms, by , which was the principal ornament on the front of the Great Storehouse, burnt .

On the east wall (modernised) are the , and the , which was used as a prison for Roman Catholic priests in the reign of Elizabeth.

At the south-east angle is the picturesque , with some good gothic windows. The ground floor is a vaulted chamber, with deep recesses. The upper floor, used as a prison, has some curious sculptures, a sphere with the signs of the zodiac, the work of a man imprisoned on accusation of sorcery, with the inscription,

Hew Draper of Brystow made thys spheer the

30

daye of Maye anno

1561

.

In another part of the room is a globe, probably by the same person. The name

Mychael Moody,

May 15

.

1587

,

is that of imprisoned for conspiring against the life of Elizabeth.

The Royal of the Tower occupied the ground between the Salt Tower and the Lanthorn Tower, of the most ancient parts of the fortress, destroyed in . Its site is now occupied by the hideous The Tower ceased to be used as a palace after the accession of Elizabeth, to whom it recalled the personal associations of a prison.

Returning through the Outer Ward, by the remains (left) of the , we have of the most charming views in the fortress, where some trees overshadow the archway, which crosess the ward close to the Wakefield Tower.

A visit to the Tower may be well followed by to the , in the , the long street which runs north from to , for here, in a tin box, is preserved the most ghastly relic connected with the Tower. It is the still perfect , father of Lady Jane Grey, which was found preserved in tannin in a small vault on the south of the altar, and which, in its aquiline nose and arched eyebrows,

416

corresponds with the portrait engraved by Lodge from a portrait at Hatfield, of which there is a duplicate in the National Portrait Gallery. The features are perfect, but the hair is gone, the skin has become a bright yellow, the cheeks and eyelids are like leather, the teeth rattle in the jaws. The neck shows the false blow of the executioner, which failed to extinguish life, and the fatal blow which cut through veins and cartilage, severing the head from the body. The church contains several curious monuments, including that of William Legge, who attended Charles I. upon the scaffold, and bore thence his message to the Prince of Wales

to remember the faithfullest servant ever prince had.

In the same grave rests his son George, Baron Dartmouth, Counsellor to Charles II. and James II., and Master of the Horse to James II. He was appointed Admiral of the fleet intended to intercept the landing of the Prince of Orange, and, failing, was sent, after the revolution, to the Tower, where he died in . His son, William, Earl of Dartmouth, is also buried here. The monument erected by Lady Pelham, daughter of a St. John of Bletsoe, to her husband and son has the epitaph-

Deathe first did strike Sir John, here tomb'd in claye,

And then enforst his son to follow faste;

Of Pelham's line, this kniyghte was chiefe and stay,

By this, behold! all flesh must dye at laste.

But Bletsowe's lord, thy sister most may moane,

Both mate and sonne hathe left her here alone.

Sir John Pelham dyed

October 13

.

1580

.

Oliver Pelham, his sonne, dyed

January 19

.

1584

.

Here Sir Philip Sidney, who received his death-wound at Zutphen, lay in state before his national funeral in .

417

Unto the Minories his body was conveyed,

And there, under a martial hearse, three months or more was laid;

But when the day was come he to his grave must go,

A host of heavy men repaired to see the solemn show.

This dismal little church is the only memorial of the convent founded for Minorites,

Poor Clares,

who gave a name to the street, by Blanche, Queen of Navarre, wife of Edmond Plantagenet, Earl of Lancaster, son of Henry III. It was probably on account of this foundation by his sister-in-law, that Edward I. deposited here the heart of his mother, the unpopular Eleanor of Provence, who died in the nunnery of Ambresbury in . The Minorite Convent was granted to the Duke of Suffolk by Edward VI., in . The Convent-farm was leased to Goodman, from whom

Goodman's Fields

,

Goodman's Stile

,

and

Goodman's Yard

take their names.

At the which farm I myself in my youth have fetched many a halfpennyworth of milk, and never had less than three ale-pints for a half-penny in the summer, nor less than one ale-quart for a half-penny in the winter, and always hot from the kine, as the same was milked and obtained.-Stow.

It was in the that Lord Cobham died, at the house of his laundress,

rather of hunger than any natural disease.

[n.417.1]  The street was formerly famous for its gunsmiths-

The mulcibers who in the Minories sweat, And massive bars on stubborn anvils beat, Deform themselves, yet forge those stays of steel, Which arm Amelia with a shape to kill. Congreve.

On , facing a garden on the north of the Tower, is the , built by Samuel Wyatt for the company

418

founded by Sir Thomas Spert, Comptroller of the Navy to Henry VIII., for the encouragement of navigation, the regulation of lighthouses, the providing of efficient pilots, and the general control of naval matters not directly under the Admiralty.

A little farther east is the , built by Johnson and Sir R. Smirke. Here the gold and silver of the realm are melted and coined. Sir Isaac Newton and Sir John Herschel were Masters of the Mint, an office abolished in .

The streets east of the Tower are the Sailors' Town. The shops are devoted to the sale of sailors' clothing, nautical instruments, and naval stores; the population is made up of sailors, shipbuilders, and fishermen.

The connected with the Thames occupy a space of acres. The principal Docks are , opened ; the , opened ; the , opened ; the , opened ; the , opened ; and the , opened .

Lords of the world's great waste, the ocean, we Whole forests send to reign upon the sea.-Waller.

Near St. Katherine's, a place which latterly bore the strangely corrupted name of Hangman's Gains, long marked the street which was the asylum of the refugees from Hammes et Guynes, near Calais, after that town was recaptured from the English I Below the is , where Lord Chancellor Jeffreys, attempting to escape after the abdication of James II., was taken while he was drinking at the Red Cow, in Hope and Anchor Alley, King Edward's Stairs; he was identified by a scrivener of , whom

419

he had insulted from the bench, and who recognised the terrible face as he was lolling out of a window, in the dress of a common sailor, and in fancied security. is the place where pirates were hung in chains. Beyond are the miserable thickly inhabited districts of and

At is the entrance of the , formed -, by Sir Isambard K. Brunel, at an expense of . This long useless passage under the river, to , was sold to the East London Railway Company in , and is now a railway tunnel.

A number of taverns with riverside landing-places retain their quaint original names, but they are little worth visiting. The

Waterman's Arms

in has some remains () of an old brick front towards the street, and the view from its river balcony, with the ancient boat-building yards, and timbers green with salt weeds in the foreground, has often been painted.

The main thoroughfare of this part of London, which will always be known by its old name of , though it has been foolishly changed to Street, obtained unpleasant notoriety from the murders of the Marr family and the Williamsons in ZZZ I, after which, as Macaulay says,

Many can remember the terror which was on every face, the careful barring of doors, the providing of blunderbusses and watchmen's rattles.

But those who visit it now will find Ratcliffe Highway a cheerful airy street, without any especial evidence of poverty or crime. No. is the famous

Wild Beast Shop,

called Jamrach's, an extraordinary place, where almost any animal may be purchased, from an elephant to a mouse.

 
 
Footnotes:

[n.367.1] Camden.

[n.367.2] For further details as to this church, consult Collections in Illustration of the Parochial Hist. of Allhallows, Barking, by Joseph Maskell.

[n.371.1] The father (by his third wife) of Louis XII. He had previously married Isabella of Valois, widow of Richard II. of England.

[n.378.1] See Burnet's History of the Reformation.

[n.398.1] D«Israeli, Curiosities of Literature.

[n.400.1] Fuller.

[n.401.1] D«Israeli.

[n.414.1] See Timbs's Romance of London, vol. ii. The other ghostly appearance in the Tower, the axe, which appears in the shadow of moonlight on the walls of the White Tower, has had many advocates

[n.417.1] Works of Francis Osborn, ed. 1700, p. 381.